I'm going to let you in on a little secret. That is concerning what my dream career would be. That is, to be an anthropology professor. But with a BSc in chemistry, if I want to get straight onto a Master's programme in anthropology, I'm going to have to do a lot of ground work on my own, and that's exactly what I intend to do.
Two days ago I went to Shandong University, where I attended an anthropology lecture.
I had emailed the Head of the department (there are only three anthropology departments in China at the moment and one happens to be in the city that I am in) and he sent me the schedule of the Junior and Sophomore students so that i could attend some lectures as an auditor (just sitting in and listening). The University was beautiful and I found an area of very tall trees that was incredibly striking.
I had no idea where these lectures would be held, so I asked the first victim to cross my path. He turned out to be a tall, skinny, slightly camp, Chinese boy. He very kindly volunteered to take me to find the exact classrooms, not even content with just showing me the blocks. His English was incredibly good and he told me he loved watching Downton Abbey.
The lecture was part of a course entitled 'Gender and Sexuality' and this particular lecture was on Masculinity. The slides were all in English but unfortunately for me, the lecture was in Chinese. Still, it was good to be immersed in the language for 3 hours with a vague idea of what they were talking about thanks to the slides in the background.
The lecturer was from Singapore and his English was flawless. He broke into English once in a while and from these break-outs I learnt what the 'Bathroom problem' is. Basically, it involves the dilemma of if someone neither identifies as 'male' or 'female' then which bathroom should they use? The lecturer was saying how society makes it compulsory for individuals to define their sex through everyday male/female divides.
At the end of the lecture I spoke with a few students. They told me how hard their course is, primarily for the fact that they have five courses and they are all in English - readings and exams. What struck me was how they were learning 'Western anthropology', i.e. anthropology that was made by and on the most part, made for, white middle-class (in the past, mainly men) people. The discipline itself is Western and I believe it still has a long way to go for it to gain its own Eastern flavour.
I plan to write anthropological essays from time to time and post them on here. This will motivate me to turn out as good quality work as I can, since I never know who is reading these posts.
Also if you have any information about how I could get onto an anthropology masters without a BA in the subject, please let me know!
Two days ago I went to Shandong University, where I attended an anthropology lecture.
I had no idea where these lectures would be held, so I asked the first victim to cross my path. He turned out to be a tall, skinny, slightly camp, Chinese boy. He very kindly volunteered to take me to find the exact classrooms, not even content with just showing me the blocks. His English was incredibly good and he told me he loved watching Downton Abbey.
The lecture was part of a course entitled 'Gender and Sexuality' and this particular lecture was on Masculinity. The slides were all in English but unfortunately for me, the lecture was in Chinese. Still, it was good to be immersed in the language for 3 hours with a vague idea of what they were talking about thanks to the slides in the background.
The lecturer was from Singapore and his English was flawless. He broke into English once in a while and from these break-outs I learnt what the 'Bathroom problem' is. Basically, it involves the dilemma of if someone neither identifies as 'male' or 'female' then which bathroom should they use? The lecturer was saying how society makes it compulsory for individuals to define their sex through everyday male/female divides.
At the end of the lecture I spoke with a few students. They told me how hard their course is, primarily for the fact that they have five courses and they are all in English - readings and exams. What struck me was how they were learning 'Western anthropology', i.e. anthropology that was made by and on the most part, made for, white middle-class (in the past, mainly men) people. The discipline itself is Western and I believe it still has a long way to go for it to gain its own Eastern flavour.
I plan to write anthropological essays from time to time and post them on here. This will motivate me to turn out as good quality work as I can, since I never know who is reading these posts.
Also if you have any information about how I could get onto an anthropology masters without a BA in the subject, please let me know!
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